Making history as the first African-American president of the Southern Baptist Convention, Rev. Fred Luter will address the annual meeting of Mississippi Baptists in Jackson.

The 177th gathering of the Mississippi Baptist Convention is scheduled October 30-31 in Jackson.

Luter serves as senior pastor of 7,000-member Franklin Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans. His election in his hometown in June 2012 to lead the sixteen million-member Southern Baptist Convention attracted national media attention.

A prominent speaker at evangelism conferences, revivals, and state conventions nationwide, Luter will address the meeting at 10:50 a.m. on Wednesday October 31 at First Baptist Church Jackson.

Other speakers include Mississippi College graduate Jim Phillips, senior pastor at North Greenwood Baptist Church, Jeff Iorg, president of Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary and Mississippi Baptist Convention President David Hamilton, senior pastor at West Heights Baptist Church in Pontotoc.

The Mississippi Baptist Convention each year attracts a sizeable delegation of Mississippi College leaders, including President Lee Royce, Vice President for Christian Development Eric Pratt, and Wayne VanHorn, dean of the School of Christian Studies and the Arts. The meetings attract many MC alumni as well.

“I look forward to the gathering each year because I am able to share the successes and the struggles that fellow Christ followers across Mississippi experience,” Pratt said.

“I am also reminded during the convention that Mississippi College is being prayed for and supported by thousands of men and women who will never set foot on campus,” Pratt added. “They desperately desire for lives across the world to be impacted by a university that is recognized for academic excellence and its commitment to the cause of Christ.”

MC business professor Billy Morehead attended his first convention as a member of the sanctuary choir at First Baptist Church Jackson in the late 1980s. He also served as a convention messenger from First Baptist Church Cleveland and First Baptist Church Jackson.

Morehead is looking forward to Luter’s speech in Jackson after hearing him preach at the summer’s Southern Baptist Convention in New Orleans.

“He is a gifted speaker, has a powerful voice and is an amazing man of God,” Morehead said.

The entire two days is time well spent for Baptists statewide. “The convention is a time of celebration of our past, renewal for our current strength and preparation for our future,” the Mississippi College accounting professor says.

Mississippi College’s School of Nursing will again send a delegation of students to conduct blood pressure checks, and other health screenings for hundreds of convention visitors.